Beef Noodle Soup from Shilin Night Market - $~1.40

Shilin, Taipei, Taiwan

Happy 2010 everyone, just back from a 3 week long trip around Taiwan. Well, 3 weeks ago, but I only have time to post now.

I’ve taken over 100 shots of the stuff I ate there, so I’ll probably be posting for weeks to come. I also probably won’t be as descriptive as before, and instead go ahead with mostly photos and accompanying captions. Since I don’t speak a word of Mandarin I should say now that I’ll be making up the names for most of the dishes. Also, I never took note of how much each and every dish were so guesstimates are all you’re gonna get. You’re welcome. Also, all the shots were taken using only a point and shoot. It may be a spectacular camera my S90, but with little to no photographic forethought before each shot, it can only do so much, so excuse the quality and lack of artistic flare.

We start off at Shilin Night Market, one of the more famous night markets in Taiwan. We went there on our very first night in Taiwan, but ended up there on our final night in Taiwan as well so expect to see more from this place much later on.

Here we have Beef Noodle Soup, from one of the many noodle stalls within the night market. More specifically, it’s beef chunks, tripe and stomach. You get to pick what type of noodle you want, for example egg noodles, rice noodles, vermicelli, etc. Nothing incredibly special about this. The price is between $1-1.40.

This is what my friend ate, rice with beef stew. Pretty unappetizing IMO. The beef stew was not all meat, half of it was fat. It’s not much of a complete meal, probably more of a snack or space filler or a deal closer and as such only costs about $0.60 maybe? I noticed it was really glistening with oil so I went to look for where this was prepared, and found the source. This is what the “stew” looks like. Ugh.. however I discover later that it’s sold all over Taiwan, so it must be a well known Taiwanese dish, and now I kinda regret not trying it.

Since I took a few more shots that night, I’ll include them in this post. It’s the only time you’ll see SLR shots of food, as it was the first day and I was excited enough to want to shoot everything  with the SLR.

The drink was a letdown, I think it’s supposed to be primarily kumquat juice with a bit of herbal tea and jelly. Well I only tasted the kumquat which is fine, but the jelly had no taste at all, yet it is served in pretty big bite-sized chunks. So when I was done with the drink I had about over a quarter cup of jelly with absolutely no taste. Probably cost me around $0.30 - $0.60.

The next you see someone frying vegetables and Ho Chien, or omelette with oysters which I believe is Hokkien. I never sampled it in Taiwan, cos from the many times I’ve seen   it cooked, I wasn’t really in the mood to. One thing I noticed about Taiwanese cooking, it’s oily as hell. I mean ridiculously oily. Like 7 layers of paper towel under this dish and it’d still soak right thru oily. But anyways we get this dish here in Malaysia so I’ll do a follow up one day.

Finally the last pic shows someone grilling Taiwanese pork sausages. These are available EVERYWHERE but I only ate this later on in the trip and not here where I took the pic, so I’ll post about it later.

The night isn’t even over yet, after this we walked on and found some more stuff to eat, but I’ll talk about that in another post.

See, told you I’d keep it short didn’t I?

Pasta Mardi Gras from Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen - $21.95

921 Pasquinelli Dr, Westmont, IL - (630) 455-9846

Pasta Mardi Gras - Linguine tossed with crawfish, andouille sausage & crimini mushrooms in a marinara cream sauce topped with jumbo grilled shrimp.

I can't deny that the above menu description sounds awesome, nor can i deny that the dish was tasty. But at $22 for a bowl of pasta, there needs to be more. Someone told me you get a large discount when you sit at the bar during lunch hours. I didn't hear about this until after I went so I can't confirm it, but 50% off (yes, I was told 50% off) is definitely worth a shot. And if I could get this same dish for $11, I would make the trip all the time.

Polish Sausage from Jim's Original - $3.25

1250 S Union Ave, Chicago, IL - (312)733-7820

I had a recurring dream about this Polish sausage for over five months. In my dream, I would crave one of these and set out to get one, but then never reach the restaurant. That had to be one of the most frustrating dreams I've ever had, so you can imagine how delighted I was to finally get to eat one.

Of course, it's hard to meet expectations like that, but man, that was one satisfying Polish sausage. Objectively speaking, it's a very basic Polish sausage with only grilled onions, mustard, and hot peppers, but there's something very alluring about it all. My friend and I actually both concur that it tastes better without the peppers too. Also, did I mention that it's open 24x7? That probably has something to do with it.

Roasted Red Pepper Sausage & Chicken Penne from TGIFriday's - $6.99

650 South College Avenue, Newark, DE - (302)737-3700

I'm feeling a bit lazy today since I'll be fairly busy for about the next month. Therefore, I'm stealing the description of the dish from tgifridays.com:

"Hot Italian sausage and chicken served over penne pasta and tossed with creamy roasted red pepper sauce and sautéed red onions. Finished with shavings of Parmesan cheese."

The best thing about this dish is the price. I can't remember it exactly, but I think it was $6.99, whereas all the other pastas were about $12. Of course, cheap food doesn't mean anything if it tastes like garbage, but this was actually a tasty dish. I'm considering making it a standard add-on to another entrée whenever I go.

Sausage, Egg, & Cheese McGriddle from McDonald's - $2.30

1401 Governor's Place, Bear, DE - (302)836-1308

It seems all breakfast sandwiches are a combination of sausage/bacon/ham, egg, and cheese. This one's no different, but at least they tried to do something creative with the bread - the bun has been injected with syrup to give the sandwich a much sweeter taste.

I've heard people say they love it or hate it, so at the very least, it deserves a shot.

Sausage, Egg, & Cheese Croissan'wich from Burger King - $4.58

1170 Pulaski Highway, Bear, DE - (302)838-1900

The item is just as its name states - a croissant with sausage, egg, and American cheese in the middle. For some reason, they list the price of $4.58 for two sandwiches instead of listing $2.29 for one sandwich. It must be their marketing ploy to get fatties such as myself to order two instead of just one... and apparently it works because I end up ordering two whenever I go.

Anyway, I'm a huge sucker for croissants so this is probably my favorite item off their menu. I think you can substitute the sausage for either bacon or ham, but I always go for the sausage. (Insert gay joke here).

Enormous Omelette Sandwich from Burger King - $3.19

1170 Pulaski Highway, Bear, DE - (302)838-1900

This sandwich is 730 calories of heart attack goodness. The layers go: bun, egg, sausage patty, two strips of bacon, egg, cheese, and then bun. It's a good sandwich, but there's one other item I prefer to get over this one (to be posted tomorrow).